Steel
- I've resonated with his thoughts in general. I think the whole no lynch vote to start the game is more likely to come from town than scum, and I liked the way he approached Vedith's claim - skeptical, but ready to game solve if it was true. There's also a few posts that I don't really see scum making, like
557. Not to mention that he parked a vote on Carca while he went on V/LA. The only qualm I have with him at the moment is that
811 seems like taking too much credit.
Also, I like the way he's approaching the alban meta he found, it's similar to what I thought when I looked at it.
Mario
- I really liked the way he approached Vedith and Carca yesterday; he seemed to be analyzing them based on his experience and didn't sheep. He did 180 on Vedith when Vedith refused to claim, which could be a convenient way to hop on the wagon I guess but I feel like at that point scum!Mario would stay off and try to get town points for fighting a mislynch. Also I agree that Carca attacking him makes him unlikely to be her buddy. His posts today are meh but not bad - I understand why I'm being attacked for
971. :/
Why Mafia
- I feel like I can follow his train of thought, though I don't agree with everything. I think we have similar play styles, or at least he thinks we do, which is NAI of course but it's applicable to me trying to read him. There have been a couple of times where he reacted to something in a way that resonated with the way I reacted, hence the townread. I'm not sure I understand why alban thinks he's scummy? I think it's because he sees WM as not really doing anything productive, and pushing albans with a bad case, but I'm having trouble finding where alban argues that WM is mafia as opposed to that he himself is not. (Besides
1018 which doesn't seem strong enough for alban's read.) I can see WM's case coming from town or scum, it doesn't really ping me. I think my townread on WM is mostly just because resonance, and it feels like he's doing stuff without trying too hard to look town. I think albans directly disagrees with this, and I'd like to talk about why.
The points I have against him are the late switch to Vedith yesterday, like he could have been bussing, and I haven't been able to shake the feeling that he's been trying to buddy me. He makes more sense as Carca's buddy than some of the other players. I think my reasoning on both sides is pretty weak, now that I'm looking at them, but my gut wants to believe he's town.
Mulch
- I think I've already gone into detail as to my thoughts on Mulch in the first half of
996. Io's interactions with Carca could be from scum (I don't really see the buddying attempt as that strong an argument, sorry - actually, it's a little strange to me that that's your reason for saying Io was town, although it seems to fit your style of hunting), and he's really self-aware. He claims the self-awareness is not scummy from him - I need to dig up some meta on him before making a decision on that. Also, the repeated claims that he's practically confirmed town make me not want to town read him. Also, he seems like really experienced scum, so I think it makes sense to townread him less easily.
Otherwise, though, I really like what he's been doing today. He feels like he's actively trying to figure out the gamestate and read people, and the way he's doing it is deep and nuanced and feels genuine. Some people have pointed out the interactions between him and WM - nothing really stood out to me about them except his meta-townread on WM, which I was inclined at first to believe because Mulch just seemed so town, but I'm realizing that I should probably take that with a grain of salt. I also haven't looked deeply into anything he said after page 42-ish.
alban
- I think what was throwing me off about alban is that I somehow got from
214 that he's a logical player, and he's actually very much an emotional player (rereading, I understand what he's trying to say now - that was a misreading and my fault). As I was rereading that, I also noticed that he seems to be fulfilling his self-scum-meta more than his self-town-meta, and we've already caught scum for that. I think the main argument against him right now is that he hasn't really done much, but has tried to look like he's doing things. I don't think leaving his vote on Vedith is alignment indicative - I think he was just busy. His rage in twilight also felt genuine. And I'd forgotten about Carca's interactions with him from yesterday - I don't think it's impossible that's a bus, but it is a point in favor of town-alban. He didn't really mention Carca much himself, though, and I'm curious what happened in between
514 and
608.
So I went and looked at some of alban's ISOs in past games, and in general he seems more emotional and self-righteous as town, where as scum he seemed more cheerful and willing to work with people. This points to alban being town in this game, although I generally don't like using meta for anything besides gauging style because it's easily manipulatable. Also the whole deal where he dismisses people, tunnels, and/or has really sticky votes is typical. Also notable: alban frequently quits games out of frustration with other players as town, so the rage yesterday was pretty normal. It's actually kind of weird that he withdrew the replacement request. I agree with Steel, I think, that all this meta is probably NAI, when all is said and done. But I think it explains away some of his scumminess.
That said, I do agree he isn't doing much besides defending. And he's really, really, really self-aware; I think multiple times now he's misinterpreted a post as directed at him when it's not. This is probably NAI to be honest, based on his meta, but it kinda reads like scum paranoia. My gut really wants to townread him but I'm not really able to find good reasons to do so, which suggests my gut is wrong. Maybe I'm just falling for AtE. :/
Scorpious
- The more Scorpious posts, the better I feel about him. I suspected him Day 1 because he didn't really contribute much and seemed to be slipping under the radar, and also because most of his posts were either IIoA or randomly pointing out that something was scummy, without any real follow-through, and read to me more as random shade-casting or discrediting than sorting. His posts today definitely feel like genuine sorting, though - he's reading pretty in-depth, I think, whereas yesterday felt more like surface-reading. Also, I feel like his suspicion of Mulch doesn't really benefit scum-Scorpius that much. He's not very open, but I think that's just his style. I understand why for some he's still a suspect just by PoE but I don't think I want to go after him today.
Llama
- So I briefly suspected Llama yesterday because I thought
567 was a misrep of Carca. He subtly dropped the point (I think?), and obviously, knowing that Carca is scum, it doesn't make sense for one scum to twist the facts to attack another. Also, he did make the big argument against Carca yesterday that led to the wagon, although I think Vedith can take some credit for the wagon as well. This suggested to me that Llama's very likely town, although as Mulch pointed out, it's possible he was bussing since he did end up on Vedith, the counter wagon, instead, and was hedging a bit. So I guess he's not cleared, then.
I think one of the reasons I'm having a hard time getting a handle on him is that, like Mulch, he seems like he could be experienced scum, so I'm not going to townread him as easily. Also I keep looking at his posts and thinking, "Wow, that's a really good case" and then looking more closely and it's not as strong as it first appears - this is probably my fault, but the fact that his posts appear better on the first glance than the second rubs me the wrong way. The way he frames his cases also makes difficult for me to see his train of thought - his reads are already so well developed by the time he posts, so he might be deciding who to attack and then justifying it? People also keep accusing him of twisting facts/lying - I did first in
585, but I liked the rest of his case so I dropped it. In retrospect, I'm not sure that actually got resolved? I haven't looked closely enough at the other accusations to see whether they hold water. It's kind of weird that he drops certain points, though, like what I brought up in
585.
On the other hand, he has been making strong pushes, and he's been consistent and sticks to his guns. I think he's made some really good points, and in several places I seem him actively trying to get inside people's heads. While I was initially skeptical of his lack of doubt, rereading, I can see some. And the policy lynch is NAI.
In summary, I kinda gut scumread Llama, but I'm also getting town vibes from him just because he's trying harder to read people than some of the other players. I'm also still not sure how much sense he makes as a partner to Carca.
I think I'm comfortable saying my overall readlist would be something like this:
{Steel, Mario}
{Scorpious}
{WM, Mulch}
{alban, Llama}
